Denison Magazine
Tyler Nguyen ’27 makes award-winning short films, but he admits that growing up, “I never had a career plan.”
Nguyen’s path to cinema wasn’t a straight line; at one point, he seriously considered becoming a professional Rubik’s Cube competitor. The dominoes fell into place after embracing his father’s photography hobby.
Nguyen started making “short films that were pretty bad, but eventually got a little bit better and better,” as he trained himself to “have a better eye for things.”
Like many young artists, Nguyen’s early ego was “huge.” In high school, he proudly screened films that he thought were amazing but now realizes weren’t as “good as I thought they were.”
The turning point came at Denison, where he credits the “brutal” but necessary honesty of a cinema professor for helping him shed his artistic ego and truly begin to grow.
This internal shift was complemented by an external one. For much of his life, filmmaking was a solo endeavor: Nguyen behind the camera, the keyboard, and the editing screen.
Arriving in Granville from Vietnam, this sense of independence initially manifested as isolation.
“At first, it was lonely here,” he said. “Denison is a small campus in a town where, if you don’t find your people, you have a rough time. But once you do, it’s amazing.”
And find them he did. The friendships and relationships he forged became the new heart of his work, transforming his process from a solitary effort into a deeply collaborative one.
A class on personal storytelling served as a final catalyst, and he began writing from his own experiences. This new approach led to his breakout film, Stuck in Frame, a project that felt different from anything he’d made before. “I need to tell this,” Nguyen recalled thinking. “It’s the first one that was a story I really wanted to tell.”
The film’s authenticity resonated, and Stuck in Frame ended its festival run with three wins, two finalists, and six official selections. He realized that the experiences he once kept separate from his art were, in fact, his greatest asset.
“The relationships I have,” he said, “became the source of my best work.”
The strength of that community was on full display at the screening for his latest film, Ghost Writer. Nguyen expected a few friends, but over 60 students packed into Slayter Auditorium to watch the premiere.
Today, Nguyen’s filmmaking has transformed into an inherently collaborative effort that he is intent on repaying. Deciding to shift his focus this semester, Nguyen has stepped back from directing his own major project.
Instead, he works with his peers to exchange technical and creative support, helping one another tell the stories they’re passionate about.
October 27, 2025
